Woman shot by federal agents in Chicago amid tense ICE clashes

Officials say agents opened fire after being boxed in by vehicles; witnesses accuse feds of provoking protesters as tensions rise over raids.

Federal agents shot a woman in the southwest Chicago neighborhood of Brighton Park on Saturday morning, who was part of an incident where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that their vehicles were rammed and then boxed in by about 10 vehicles, according to CBS News. DHS agents allege that one of the vehicles boxing them in was driven by a woman who had a semi-automatic weapon; the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents fired upon the woman in the vehicle five times.

The woman, later identified as Marimar Martinez, 40, was able to evade the agents, but she was later located by paramedics at a nearby repair shop before being taken to the hospital. Upon being released from the hospital, she was taken into FBI custody. According to DHS, Martinez showed up in a CBP bulletin last week for doxxing agents and threatening ICE agents in online forums. Martinez has been charged with forcibly assaulting, impeding, and interfering with a federal law enforcement officer.

Another man involved in the same incident, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, also of Chicago, was also charged with the same counts as Martinez and drove away from the scene before being apprehended shortly after by agents at a gas station. 

The incident is the latest in news coming from Chicago, where ICE agents conducting raids have been met by protests around the city. At the scene of the Saturday shooting, protests erupted and were met by aggressive action on the part of federal agents; according to reports from the scene, there were objects thrown and federal agents using pepper spray against protestors. Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) said that agents seemed to be antagonizing protestors, driving through the crowds, seeming to welcome confrontation. At one point, agents drove a military vehicle into the crowd and pointed the guns from the roof at protestors.

Ald. Ramirez shared, “If they are zooming through a crowd of protesters and they are doing it every five minutes to continue the irritation on people, it’s almost like they want people to be provoked.”

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) was accused by DHS officials of not helping during the incident where Martinez was shot. Chicago police officials said that, though they responded to the scene to assist in the maintenance of peace and order. CPD further stated that federal officials were the authority on the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

Chicago has been one of the cities at the epicenter of the Trump administration’s goals to send federal troops in to “make the cities safe again.” Trump officials have been at odds with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker about the deployment of the national guard and federal troops into the city.